I expect more partners, both hardware and software, to announce integrations with Universal Print in due course. Like Microsoft, PaperCut are offering customers the ability to get into a private preview to trial this if you want to – check out their blog. We’ve got an easy-to-use integration with the Azure platform via Universal Print, and we’re looking forward to feedback from those in the private preview testing. Which, as it happens, is where we’re at today. Microsoft contacted us early on in development to ensure PaperCut MF and NG would interface with Universal Print from the get-go. It was hush-hush until today, hence why you haven’t heard us talking about it. I note that PaperCut has announced on their blog that they have support for Universal Print: Good news for Azure fans wanting to use PaperCutīetween you and me, we’ve been working with Microsoft for a while on this project. The other component where partners are important for Universal Print is in cost recovery – expensing the cost of that printing. Most schools will likely have existing printers that do not yet natively support Universal Print, so Microsoft has provided a cloud connector to enable these to work seamlessly. Isamu Sato, Senior General Manager, Office Imaging Products Operations, Canon Inc. In partnership with Microsoft, we are committed to supporting Universal Print and support our customers in their journey to the digital workplace. Canon Inc.’s imageRUNNER ADVANCE and Office Printers provide the flexibility and scalability to address diverse workplace needs. The way people work is changing as cloud computing and technology continue to expand and evolve, driving digital transformation. The launch blog notes that Microsoft is working with printer partners to integrate Universal Print directly into their hardware for native support and Canon Inc appears to be one of the first bringing this to market: Now, schools could explore the Universal Print solution from Microsoft, instead of third party cloud products and manage their printing with deep integration with Microsoft 365 (M365).įor cloud printing to work, integration with hardware is important. To that end, he adopted Printix to achieve a 100% cloud environment. However, in that case Aaron still ran into issues around fully moving to a cloud print solution as Microsoft’s hybrid cloud print required on premise servers still. Many schools are already well underway with full cloud migrations of their on premise infrastructure, this webinar I did with Aaron Overington the IT Manager from One School Global is a great example of this. Users can continue to print from their Windows devices or Office as they always have, with no learning curve. In addition, printers can be preconfigured and are easily discoverable from Windows devices that are Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) joined. IT organizations can deploy printers and register them with the Universal Print service without the need for a complex hybrid print setup. The Universal Print solution promises to be more simple to deploy than the hybrid cloud solution I mentioned above: To be able to go public with it at last is pretty exciting and the fact that the launch blog specifically calls out education customers as a focus is awesome. Now, this is something that I’ve known about internally for quite a while and have been working with some customers on trialling in the private preview. I’ve blogged in the past about the hybrid cloud print solution (still available today) powered by AzureAD, however the Universal Print solution goes that next step and requires no on premise infrastructure for print server queues. In addition, Universal Print adds key functionality like security groups for printer access, location-based printer discovery, and a rich administrator experience. Universal Print moves key Windows Server print functionality to the Microsoft 365 cloud, so organizations no longer need on-premises print servers and do not need to install printer drivers on devices. Last week saw the exciting announcement of the Universal Print solution from Microsoft and, whilst still only in private preview, this is something education customers should definitely pay close attention to. For example, there is a MacOS request already that you could upvote here. If these are critical features for you, I suggest you add to the Universal Print Feature Request here. UPDATE 9th March 2020: A few people have asked me whether macOS and ChromeOS are supported, particularly because the architecture diagram indicates Windows 10 only:įor now, the focus remains remains on Windows 10 initially, however I understand both MacOS and ChromeOS (ChromeBooks) are on the roadmap.
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